They already are understood and explained in exactly that fashion, without a hint towards requiring make believe or pleading away all current science on consciousness simply because you can't accept it.

I completely accept current science that I've on consciousness, I just think that it's mostly focusing on those which are the least subjective and easiest to objectively access.

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You view science as a threat and you respond emotionally, condemning anyone that specifically addresses what you don't want to accept and constructing horrendous strawmen.

I try not to condemn anyone, but I'm skeptical of conventional wisdom. I love science, and I've never viewed it as a threat, I just see that the strictly materialistic interpretation of science as a worldview is radically incomplete.

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Imm, it is not like these studies do not exist, you can easily go find them for yourself. What you do in response, in a desperate attempt to keep from having to agree with anyone and to serve your 'pet' supernatural belief in a 'magical' consciousness, is to constantly plead your original claim in the 'gaps' you artificially impose. You use a language of nonsensical rhetoric, with an eye towards making your next special pleading argument and dismissal of anyone who doesn't first accept the original claim. Just like you respond emotionally and antagonistically to 'skeptics', deriding a strawman perception with claims that amount to little more then ad hominems.

You must be psychic. You know all about my reasoning and tactics, yet you have no idea what I'm talking about. It couldn't be you who often responds emotionally and antagonistically to skepticism, deriding a strawman perception with claims that amount to little more than ad hominems. No, of course not. You? ad hominem? Impossible. Condemning people? Why you would never be accused of being the pot calling the kettle an idiot or suggesting that someone jerk off to Deepak Chopra and then having the unmitigated gall to accuse your target of targeting others. You may have a hard time making sense of what I write, but I can make sense of what you write with crystal clarity.

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Notice how the claim,"consciousness cannot be modeled in exclusively mechanical, objective terms" Doesn't follow from explanation, evidence, or reasoned argument. It is instead a stop gap for ending the conversation, claimed like a tautology at the close of the imposed gap of understanding you wish to maintain.

Not at all. It's an invitation for a conversation to begin. What do I care about someone's opinion of my right to make that statement? If you want to counter my observation, show me I'm wrong by describing how features of consciousness, like qualia and meaning are successfully modeled mechanically. Behavior is not consciousness, nor is it evidence of consciousness. Behavior is just the objective consequence of intended and unintended action. A doorknob can have a behavior.

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"That which we call reality arises in the last analysis from the posing of yes–no questions and the registering of equipment-evoked responses; in short, that all things physical are information-theoretic in origin and that this is a participatory universe."- John Archibald Wheeler

They already are understood and explained in exactly that fashion, without a hint towards requiring make believe or pleading away all current science on consciousness simply because you can't accept it.

I completely accept current science that I've on consciousness, I just think that it's mostly focusing on those which are the least subjective and easiest to objectively access.

Pleading, you have yet to provide any actual examples that do not first rely on arguing for a 'gap' in understanding then pleading your claim into that artificial gap. Your claim is necessarily based on retreating into the unknown, so that you can make up whatever you wish.

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You view science as a threat and you respond emotionally, condemning anyone that specifically addresses what you don't want to accept and constructing horrendous strawmen.

I try not to condemn anyone, but I'm skeptical of conventional wisdom. I love science, and I've never viewed it as a threat, I just see that the strictly materialistic interpretation of science as a worldview is radically incomplete.

Pleading, 'strictly materialistic interpretation' is a qualification made in extension from not explaining yourself adequately. Its not like 'science' is necessarily materialistic vs not-materialistic, science is simply a method. That method is only applicable in certain terms that immediately make any kind of 'make believe' instantly and utterly devoid of any scientific merit.

There is nothing else for science to address; no dichotomy of material vs non-material, subjective vs objective, and you don't provide an adequate explanation by pleading more unexplained qualifiers.

And yes, you do view science as a threat, just like you try to reduce what science does in practice ( by only being applicable to testable claims ) to meaningless make believe. ( ie your nonsense ACME OMM bullshit )

This has nothing to do with objectivity, science, or any of the implied dichotomies you're trying to build. This is pure rhetoric, subjective and emotive pleading for no other purpose then the denigrating of an imagined position

A strawman, an ad hominem.

You also describe in contempt anything that disagrees or questions your immediate assertions in a manner to hold you responsible for your own claims:

Which was in response to an inevitable series of questions begged of your own claims that you abandon the second somebody has to ask in such rigid detail that you can't explain beyond the rhetoric you choose to use.

Which is obscenely stupid, filled with non-sequitirs, strawmen, and completely outside of ANY explanation or even the MOST basic offer to demonstrate. All that really can be taken from the video is that this man really hates a few people, for made up or unexplained reasons. Oddly enough, you seem to disparage the same exact people.

You then appeal to the constant 'middle ground' you keep going for, without every substantiating the dichotomy you impose upon others without explanation or evidence. All we have in place of what would be a normal argument that follows from logic, is a series of propaganda like assertions and dismissals. Yet, everything everyone responds to you with is what is already studied, known, advocated, and quoted from science/scientist.

You obviously view 'science' as a threat, we don't need to prescribe to your fantasy ACME OMM nonsense since you never effectively argue for it at all. At its basis, your statements can be broken down to a question of what composes 'knowledge', rather then any other assertion. The dichotomy then becomes: "Make believe Vs What can I know"

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You must be psychic. You know all about my reasoning and tactics, yet you have no idea what I'm talking about.

And of course, the claim falls apart the moment you poke at it. Even this response you're giving me now, isn't one to further explain what you're claiming or why. It is simply to excuse yourself from responsibility and to deride me for pointing it out. Just like your dismissive,'You must be psychic' bullshit doesn't offer to adequately address what I'm saying or why I'm saying it at all.

You simply do not care, because your not here to be an advocate of a useful discussion. As evidenced by a complete lack of explanatory answers and irresponsible behavior.

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suggesting that someone jerk off to Deepak Chopra

I particularly love that one.

The best kind of satire is the one based in truth. Your posts are an excellent example of the kind of nonsensical pleading and strawman building taht Deepak Chopra engages in. The reference was clearly meant to deride you in response to an insulting dismissal you made towards me. Yet, the reference is important enough in that your behavior/posts match what Chopra does.

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Notice how the claim,"consciousness cannot be modeled in exclusively mechanical, objective terms" Doesn't follow from explanation, evidence, or reasoned argument. It is instead a stop gap for ending the conversation, claimed like a tautology at the close of the imposed gap of understanding you wish to maintain.

Not at all. It's an invitation for a conversation to begin.

There is nothing to begin, you dismiss the only explanation and plead for a make believe that no one would need accept until you argue effectively for it.

No conversation can follow except to ask you the next inevitably begged question, which judging by your past behavior will result in one mindless assertion after another without a hint of intellectual responsibility. Obfuscate, throw in more rhetoric, dismiss/denigrate others who do not immediately agree, and conclude in circular terms.

So where was the conversation?

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"Religious faith is the antithesis to knowledge, it is the opposition to education, and it has to act in animosity against the free exchange of ideas. Why? Because those things are what cause harm to a religions place in society most." - Me

This has nothing to do with objectivity, science, or any of the implied dichotomies you're trying to build. This is pure rhetoric, subjective and emotive pleading for no other purpose then the denigrating of an imagined position

The context is a balanced dichotomy of extremes (absolutely spiritual vs absolutely material). I'm not denigrating one side over the other. The point is to reveal their symmetry and their mutual limitations. Note that OMM is not synonymous with 'all science' but rather materialist absolutism. It's supposed to be emotional because extreme worldviews are rooted in distortions of ego and emotion. ACMEOMMsuperstition, mania, pareidolia, woo cynicism, depression, sociopathynaive, simplistic jaded, dismissivelife=spirit-ghosts, matter=cartoon illusion life=zombie-robots, matter=factdemonic possession catatonic apathy

Everything else in your comment is just more accusations and bullying.

Fortunately there are some people out there who do understand exactly what I'm talking about and agree with me. They have been PMing me to say that they appreciate my contributions. Others who comment on here disagree with me on some points but not others, but are able to have a pointed conversation without resorting to juvenile insults. So far it's really only you that expresses a personal and abiding hatred for what I say.

It's unfortunate because sometimes you make worthwhile points but it's lost in a stream of vitriol for which there is no productive response.

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"That which we call reality arises in the last analysis from the posing of yes–no questions and the registering of equipment-evoked responses; in short, that all things physical are information-theoretic in origin and that this is a participatory universe."- John Archibald Wheeler

A) Someone in a vegetative state but experiencing a rich and pleasure-filled inner universe, with long, meaningful journeys and deep interactions with many interesting characters. You would have no memory of Earth or knowledge of your physical condition and nobody would be suffering as a result of your condition.

O) Someone in top physical condition except for an inability to experience any kind sensory pleasure, and retired from a very successful and important career, but emotionally paralyzed in a permanent state of anhedonic anguish. Haunted and enraged, they are unable to think of anything other than their own misery and unable to use their money for any other purpose except for making more money.

which would you choose? is it an obvious choice?

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"That which we call reality arises in the last analysis from the posing of yes–no questions and the registering of equipment-evoked responses; in short, that all things physical are information-theoretic in origin and that this is a participatory universe."- John Archibald Wheeler

That's my intention. By essentializing (exaggerating, caricaturing, stereotyping) the extremes, I'm trying to reveal something about their mutual value together and overvalue apart.

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"That which we call reality arises in the last analysis from the posing of yes–no questions and the registering of equipment-evoked responses; in short, that all things physical are information-theoretic in origin and that this is a participatory universe."- John Archibald Wheeler

Immediacracy, your description of OMM is completely arbitrary and nonsensical.

I disagree, but I think it's interesting that you use the words 'completely arbitrary and nonsensical', since that would describe the underlying essence of the cosmos at that end of the continuum. It reminds me precisely of the existential ground of being from which quantum mechanics randomly emerges.

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"That which we call reality arises in the last analysis from the posing of yes–no questions and the registering of equipment-evoked responses; in short, that all things physical are information-theoretic in origin and that this is a participatory universe."- John Archibald Wheeler

Personally, I have spent significant stretches of time pushing the envelope of both ends of the continuum, and see them as natural extremes which human consciousness is prone to

Which continuum? (Oh, and it should be, "to which human consciousness is prone.")

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The Cosmos is a word for order, and that's what it is.

Well, 2000 years ago it was and even then it had other meanings.

Cosmos*: c.1200 (but not popular until 1848, as a translation of Humboldt's Kosmos), from Gk. kosmos "order, good order, orderly arrangement," a word with several main senses rooted in those notions: The verb kosmein meant generally "to dispose, prepare," but especially "to order and arrange (troops for battle), to set (an army) in array;" also "to establish (a government or regime);" "to deck, adorn, equip, dress" (especially of women). Thus kosmos had an important secondary sense of "ornaments of a woman's dress, decoration" (cf. kosmokomes "dressing the hair") as well as "the universe, the world." Pythagoras is said to have been the first to apply this word to "the universe," perhaps originally meaning "the starry firmament," but later it was extended to the whole physical world, including the earth. For specific reference to "the world of people," the classical phrase was he oikoumene (ge) "the inhabited (earth)." Septuagint uses both kosmos and oikoumene. Kosmos also was used in Christian religious writing with a sense of "worldly life, this world (as opposed to the afterlife)," but the more frequent word for this was aion, lit. "lifetime, age."

I’m sure you have a point in the wall of text, but your style seems to obscure it. Do you think it would be at all possible to give an executive summary of what you have written? Perhaps leaving out the myriad lists and adjectives might help.

Thanks.

*http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=cosmos

« Last Edit: June 14, 2010, 07:07:11 PM by Graybeard »

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Nobody says “There are many things that we thought were natural processes, but now know that a god did them.”

The phenomenological continuum I describe at the top of the thread. ACME vs OMM.

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Well, 2000 years ago it was and even then it had other meanings.

Still, the point I was making is that the idea of order being central to what the universe is has merit. I didn't make it up. I can't think of a comparable term that places disordered physical substance as the primary agent of all phenomena.

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Do you think it would be at all possible to give an executive summary of what you have written? Perhaps leaving out the myriad lists and adjectives might help.

The idea is that if you organize all of the phenomena which we experience according to degree of subjectivity, a symmetrical pattern can be recognized which can be applied. This pattern is maximally dimorphic at the extremes and seamlessly mingled at the center. I think the picture captures it pretty well. This continuum of all known human experience - which, owing to the understanding that we have no way to contact any ontological realities beyond our ability to experience, is really the same thing as the cosmos.

The continuum also represents a range of possible worldviews or vantage points, such that if you are oriented psychologically toward one end of the continuum, you are likely to see the other end of the continuum in it's most negative and exaggerated form. This is the ACME vs OMM dichotomy. Spirits vs stuff. Each side dismisses and diminishes the other.

A more exotic layer of the the hypothesis is that this continuum is reflected topologically throughout the cosmos - that is, subjectivity, meaning, etc, is literally the interior of all forms. I think that cells could have a primitive subjectivity, a kind of general awareness of energy and matter, hostile vs nurturing conditions, etc. Even molecules or atoms could have an inner teleos of sorts - geometric or mathematical interiority invisible from the outside just as our consciousness is hidden from the exterior. I think that energy itself expresses order in the visible spectrum (it may have a different interior order, but I take the visible light spectrum as a clue to how order may be physically encapsulated within energy).

That's pretty much it. The thing that is common to the entire continuum is order. I think that matter is a kind of order and not the other way around, although from the far OMM perspective, order appears to be nothing at all. Matter could be thought of as a special kind of order - inside out teleology or teleonomy.

Not sure if that suits you any better, but feel free to ask any questions you like.

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"That which we call reality arises in the last analysis from the posing of yes–no questions and the registering of equipment-evoked responses; in short, that all things physical are information-theoretic in origin and that this is a participatory universe."- John Archibald Wheeler

[…]Still, the point I was making is that the idea of order being central to what the universe is has merit.

Was it you who said that humans like to see patterns? And what are patterns if they are not order?

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I didn't make it up.

I never, for one moment, thought you did.

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I can't think of a comparable term that places disordered physical substance as the primary agent of all phenomena.

It’s probably the move towards entropy.

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The idea is that if you organize all of the phenomena which we experience according to degree of subjectivity, a symmetrical pattern can be recognized which can be applied. This pattern is maximally dimorphic at the extremes and seamlessly mingled at the center. I think the picture captures it pretty well.

Really? A picture may speak 1,000 words but I usually expect the words to be in a comprehensible order. Frankly, I can make neither head nor tail of it.

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This continuum of all known human experience – […] is really the same thing as the cosmos.

Your claim has lost me completely. Were it true (and for all I know it might be, for I cannot understand it) how has it progressed us?

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The continuum also represents a range of possible worldviews or vantage points, such that if you are oriented psychologically toward one end of the continuum, you are likely to see the other end of the continuum in it's most negative and exaggerated form. This is the ACME vs OMM dichotomy. Spirits vs stuff. Each side dismisses and diminishes the other.

Could this be summarized by saying, “Some people are more likely to accept ideas without question than others? If so, your words have obscured your point.

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I think that cells could have a primitive subjectivity, a kind of general awareness of energy and matter,

What? You mean individual cells within, say, a dog’s body? Do you have a shred of evidence for that?

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Even molecules or atoms could have an inner teleos of sorts - geometric or mathematical interiority invisible from the outside just as our consciousness is hidden from the exterior.

An “interiority”, eh? Let me help you here, “They don’t.”

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I think that energy itself expresses order in the visible spectrum (it may have a different interior order, but I take the visible light spectrum as a clue to how order may be physically encapsulated within energy).

As I said, It’s probably the move towards entropy. You have simply described it in a less elegant way.

One further point. I am disturbed by your adjective, “visible”. Why should unaided human eyes be the final arbiter of patterns? Do things change when we use instruments to see the otherwise invisible?

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The thing that is common to the entire continuum is order. I think that matter is a kind of order and not the other way around, although from the far OMM perspective, order appears to be nothing at all. Matter could be thought of as a special kind of order - inside out teleology or teleonomy.

If I may summarize again, “There are patterns in nature”. Is that correct?

I think your use of $10 words obscures what otherwise might be a rather obvious theory. You are saying, unless I am mistaken, “There is order in the universe. However, it is we humans who have discovered this order, and yet, without humans, the order would still be there. ”

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Nobody says “There are many things that we thought were natural processes, but now know that a god did them.”

Was it you who said that humans like to see patterns? And what are patterns if they are not order?

Humans see patterns whether they like it or not...because that's what they are made of. Yes, patterns are order.

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It’s probably the move towards entropy.

Move from where?

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Really? A picture may speak 1,000 words but I usually expect the words to be in a comprehensible order. Frankly, I can make neither head nor tail of it.

Sorry. I do what I can.

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Your claim has lost me completely. Were it true (and for all I know it might be, for I cannot understand it) how has it progressed us?

I'm saying that our worldview is as much of a window as it is a mirror. It's just what I see to be a meaningful truth. What do you want it to do, power a washing machine?

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Could this be summarized by saying, “Some people are more likely to accept ideas without question than others? If so, your words have obscured your point.

No, that's not a useful summary, but you're close. People with a subjective bias are more likely to accept subjective-biased ideas and to reject objectively-biased evidence. They embrace subjectively biased evidence (as you can see in the New Age appropriation of Quantum Mechanics). The opposite is also true of people with an objective orientation.

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What? You mean individual cells within, say, a dog’s body? Do you have a shred of evidence for that?

Asking for objective evidence of subjective experience is like asking for a picture of color in black and white. It's a category error.

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An “interiority”, eh? Let me help you here, “They don’t.”

Did The Atom Whisperer pass that on to you personally?

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As I said, It’s probably the move towards entropy. You have simply described it in a less elegant way.

There is also syntropy - which helps explain why the cosmos isn't a cloud of dust.

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One further point. I am disturbed by your adjective, “visible”. Why should unaided human eyes be the final arbiter of patterns? Do things change when we use instruments to see the otherwise invisible?

Human eyes are the final arbiter of visual patterns. We can use instruments to extend the range of our eyes but they don't change the nature of the patterns we are able to recognize visibly. You can put on goggles to see infra-red but you don't see it as infra-red, you see it as a standard color display or green phosphor.

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If I may summarize again, “There are patterns in nature”. Is that correct?

Partially. I would add "and there is nature in patterns".

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I think your use of $10 words obscures what otherwise might be a rather obvious theory.

Why is your personal opinion of my style of writing of interest to me? Do you want me to tell you what I think of your use of words?

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You are saying, unless I am mistaken, “There is order in the universe. However, it is we humans who have discovered this order, and yet, without humans, the order would still be there. ”

Not really the main part of what I'm saying. "The universe is order. Some kinds of order function as meaning and purpose, some function as substance and change. Humans, including the entire contents of their subjective experience, are just one particular local combination of these universal processes."

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"That which we call reality arises in the last analysis from the posing of yes–no questions and the registering of equipment-evoked responses; in short, that all things physical are information-theoretic in origin and that this is a participatory universe."- John Archibald Wheeler

But objective scientific evidence of subjective experience is very well possible, e.g. by questionnaires, correlation of feelings and brain waves, etc.

Those are methods of inferring particular aspects of subjectivity indirectly from examining particular objective outputs, and even that wouldn't be possible without our own subjectivity as a guide. We can learn a lot about how subjectivity works that way, and it's important that we do that, but I think it's also important to realize that much of our consciousness, particularly the extremely subjective/creative/intuitive end of it, cannot be accessed fully 'through the back end'. There is a who and why dimension to our consciousness which does not translate into what and how.

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"That which we call reality arises in the last analysis from the posing of yes–no questions and the registering of equipment-evoked responses; in short, that all things physical are information-theoretic in origin and that this is a participatory universe."- John Archibald Wheeler

[…]Humans see patterns whether they like it or not...because that's what they are made of. Yes, patterns are order.

We are made of patterns? Care to explain?

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It’s probably the move towards entropy.

Move from where?

From where we are now. (Was that a serious question?)

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Really? A picture may speak 1,000 words but I usually expect the words to be in a comprehensible order. Frankly, I can make neither head nor tail of it.

Sorry. I do what I can.

You could do a little more and give an explanation of the picture.

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I'm saying that our worldview is as much of a window as it is a mirror.

What?

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It's just what I see to be a meaningful truth.

Have you met anyone else who thinks it’s a meaningful truth?

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People with a subjective bias are more likely to accept subjective-biased ideas and to reject objectively-biased evidence.

So subjective bias people like subjectivity… Is it me or is that almost a definition and thus trivial?

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Asking for objective evidence of subjective experience is like asking for a picture of color in black and white. It's a category error.

So you pulled the original statement out of a hat?

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An “interiority”, eh? Let me help you here, “They don’t.”

Did The Atom Whisperer pass that on to you personally?

”Interiority” eh? A term used frequently by St. Augustine to refer to the life of integrity or singleness of purpose that a person must achieve to make progress in the spiritual life.

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There is also syntropy - which helps explain why the cosmos isn't a cloud of dust.

From wiki: “Syntropy is a second-generation object-oriented analysis and software design method developed at Object Designers Limited in the UK during the early 1990s.” I suppose it could help in the universe…

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If I may summarize again, “There are patterns in nature”. Is that correct?

Partially. I would add "and there is nature in patterns".

You seem to be keen on the otiose. There is A in B and B in A. How does a pattern in nature differ from nature in a pattern? And are you satisfied that there is any use in your statement?

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I think your use of $10 words obscures what otherwise might be a rather obvious theory.

Why is your personal opinion of my style of writing of interest to me? Do you want me to tell you what I think of your use of words?

It should be of interest. The essence of communication is simplicity. You are trying to convey an idea but use verbosity, circumlocution and specialized meanings of words. I’m sure it is not necessary. I am reminded of an employee whose writing was all but illegible. Everyone thought him bright and intelligent. When computers were introduced, his writing was clear; we found he was all but illiterate. I suspect that were you to use fewer specialise words, your argument would far clearer to judge and comment upon. Take a tip from Mark Twain, “Employ a simple and straightforward style.”

You are, as everyone here is, free to comment upon my style. This is a genuine plea for you perhaps to get your ideas across without sounding like a 1960’s philosophy book.

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[…] "The universe is order.

A bold statement – there are, of course random events taking place all the time within it. Much is based entirely on probability and the universe appears at the moment to be in a state of constant change.

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Some kinds of order function as meaning and purpose, some function as substance and change.

(i) Are you using the word, ‘order’ in some specialized manner? (ii) Could you give simple examples of your claim?

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Nobody says “There are many things that we thought were natural processes, but now know that a god did them.”

The body is a three dimensional pattern of organs and bones, which are in turn patterns are patterns, mazes of tissues, which are layers of patterns of molecules configured into patterns of cells. The molecules are atomic patterns which are nothing more than patterns of charge and spin around infinitesimal points of existential vectors. All of these things derive their nature from relations of relations and have no independent value outside of this context. If you stop the electrons from spinning, or the molecules from transforming, the cells and tissues from metabolizing or circulating, the heart from beating, etc - existence on the different levels collapses.

Our minds are also patterns of patterns, relations of relations of qualia, images, symbols, words, meanings, memories, and logic. It's all order, all pattern. Even disorder is a kind of order and not the other way around. We don't say that order is dis-chaos.

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From where we are now. (Was that a serious question?)

Yes. If we are moving toward entropy, why aren't we already there? What's slowing us down? What accounts for the existence of any order to begin with to move away from? The universe as it is now is much more ordered than it was at the Big Bang. What happened?

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You could do a little more and give an explanation of the picture.

Yeah, I can do that. I'll post that here pretty soon when I get a chance.

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I'm saying that our worldview is as much of a window as it is a mirror.

What?

Our perception the world is as much defined by what we are, our perception, our intellect, our tools, our physical scale and speed. I'm just applying General Relativity to consciousness.

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Have you met anyone else who thinks it’s a meaningful truth?

Oh, definitely. I have a few friends who are into this kind of thing, and there are some authors and philosophers out there who focus on these ideas and put them together in similar ways. I've had some people PM me here that they have come to similar conclusions. My hunch is that it's only a matter of time before a similar worldview becomes widely understood, but obviously, that's just speculation.

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So subjective bias people like subjectivity… Is it me or is that almost a definition and thus trivial?

It's not that they like subjectivity it's that they only accept ideas which support their subjective bias. It's not voluntary, it actually shapes their literal perception of their lives.

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So you pulled the original statement out of a hat?

Not at all. Just because you can't produce objective evidence of a particular truth doesn't mean that it's not potentially true. Since our awareness comes from cells, and both cells and consciousness are in constant connection or communication with each other, it seems like an arbitrary conceit to imagine that cells are inert objects that somehow pull subjectivity out of a hat.

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”Interiority” eh? A term used frequently by St. Augustine to refer to the life of integrity or singleness of purpose that a person must achieve to make progress in the spiritual life.

Nah, I get it from David Chalmers stuff. I haven't read St. Augustine.

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From wiki: “Syntropy is a second-generation object-oriented analysis and software design method developed at Object Designers Limited in the UK during the early 1990s.” I suppose it could help in the universe…

You seem to be keen on the otiose. There is A in B and B in A. How does a pattern in nature differ from nature in a pattern? And are you satisfied that there is any use in your statement?

It differs in that it emphasizes that all patterns, be they physiological, material, psychological, or linguistic are all natural. Order is natural. Teleonomy and Teleology work together, neither exists in isolation from the other.

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The essence of communication is simplicity...I’m sure it is not necessary.

I disagree. For me, the essence of communication is precision. A Swiss watch doesn't need to be simple to simply keep time.

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You are, as everyone here is, free to comment upon my style. This is a genuine plea for you perhaps to get your ideas across without sounding like a 1960’s philosophy book.

Thanks, and I do take your suggestion seriously, but what if 60's philosophers were on to something?

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A bold statement – there are, of course random events taking place all the time within it. Much is based entirely on probability and the universe appears at the moment to be in a state of constant change.

Absolutely, but I think that change and randomness are just categories of order.

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(i) Are you using the word, ‘order’ in some specialized manner? (ii) Could you give simple examples of your claim?

No, I'm using the word order in the most universal manner possible. There's nothing that isn't an example of order, except for a hypothetical absence of information of any kind - an utter ontological vacuum from which no contact with any kind of order can possibly occur. The opposite of the universe.

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"That which we call reality arises in the last analysis from the posing of yes–no questions and the registering of equipment-evoked responses; in short, that all things physical are information-theoretic in origin and that this is a participatory universe."- John Archibald Wheeler

A bold piece of speculation there, Graybeard. Immediacracy's behaviour is, to my eyes, inconsistent with that of a person who is genuinely trying to convey an idea.

Well, nobody's paying me to write this stuff. I believe you that my behavior seems disingenuous to you, but not everyone experiences that at all. Some things you have to want to understand, and not just look for reasons why it can't be true.

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"That which we call reality arises in the last analysis from the posing of yes–no questions and the registering of equipment-evoked responses; in short, that all things physical are information-theoretic in origin and that this is a participatory universe."- John Archibald Wheeler

Things are certainly a lot easier to believe when you fervently need to believe them.

For my part, I've been through that rabbit hole already, 8 years ago. I've cleaned most of the dirt off since then.

I grew up believing in the deterministic worldview which most people here identify with, but started to question it around 23 years ago. I don't see that OMM worldview as unclean though, just incomplete.

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"That which we call reality arises in the last analysis from the posing of yes–no questions and the registering of equipment-evoked responses; in short, that all things physical are information-theoretic in origin and that this is a participatory universe."- John Archibald Wheeler

I grew up believing in the deterministic worldview which most people here identify with, but started to question it around 23 years ago. I don't see that OMM worldview as unclean though, just incomplete.

The body is a three dimensional pattern of organs and bones, which are in turn patterns are patterns, mazes of tissues, which are layers of patterns of molecules configured into patterns of cells. The molecules are atomic patterns which are nothing more than patterns of charge and spin around infinitesimal points of existential vectors. All of these things derive their nature from relations of relations and have no independent value outside of this context. If you stop the electrons from spinning, or the molecules from transforming, the cells and tissues from metabolizing or circulating, the heart from beating, etc - existence on the different levels collapses.

I think I can translate that:

“All matter takes on certain forms in given circumstances. This process is constrained by laws that mankind perceives as true. Stripping molecules of their atoms alters the nature of those molecules.” Am I correct?

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Our minds are also patterns of patterns,[list deleted for clarity]

You like the idea of patterns, don’t you? Do you consider that (i) it is possible that patterns are not the be-all and end-all of the universe? (ii) How do “patterns” and “laws” differ?

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It's all order, all pattern.

Well, that statement seems to support my theory of your thoughts.

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Even disorder is a kind of order and not the other way around.

“All white is black, and not the other way around.” Doesn’t make a lot of sense, does it?

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We don't say that order is dis-chaos.

and we don’t say that bad is un-good, although George Orwell did in 1984. Listen up Immediacracy, the reason we don’t say that is that we have 2 words… one is ‘order’, the other is ‘disorder’ and they mean different things. It’s called proper use of vocabulary.

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Yes. If we are moving toward entropy, why aren't we already there?

Tell me, were you one of those annoying children who, on a trip to the coast, kept saying, “Are we there yet?”

Entropy will take a little time. The Universe apologizes for any inconvenience caused by this delay.

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What accounts for the existence of any order to begin with to move away from? The universe as it is now is much more ordered than it was at the Big Bang. What happened?

At last, an easy question!

At the beginning, the hypothesis is that from a singularity there was a sudden huge expansion, perhaps the biggest ever. The expansion followed an order determined by the property of the matter that came into existence. Therefore it was just as ordered as it is now. We may see a difference in the conditions between then and now but, as they obeyed orders, it is equally as 'ordered'.

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You could do a little more and give an explanation of the picture.

Yeah, I can do that. I'll post that here pretty soon when I get a chance.

Please don’t forget to do that; as it is, the picture is simply a mentally disturbed jumble of meaninglessness. Your plan of trying to appear intellectual by being mysterious about its meaning (if any) fails to impress me.

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Our perception the world is as much defined by what we are, our perception, our intellect, our tools, our physical scale and speed.

You say “as much defined”… “as much defined” as what?

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I'm just applying General Relativity to consciousness.

What? You can’t do that! Stop it immediately! What if I applied Pythagoras’ Theorem to handling Rattle Snakes? I’d never get life insurance!

No, seriously, unless you can define consciousness and show there is a positive link, you simply can’t do that.

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Have you met anyone else who thinks it’s a meaningful truth?

Oh, definitely. […] My hunch is that it's only a matter of time before a similar worldview becomes widely understood, but obviously, that's just speculation.

All hunches are speculation. That aside, we come across odd people here who think that there is an invisible sky pixie who invites you round to his place when you’re dead.

You know, I now regret asking the question, as it appears there is more than one of you. I would rather have been ignorant of that fact.

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So subjective bias people like subjectivity… Is it me or is that almost a definition and thus trivial?

It's not that they like subjectivity it's that they only accept ideas which support their subjective bias. It's not voluntary, it actually shapes their literal perception of their lives.

Hmmmm…. That’s what I said.

It appears that you have a tendency to restate a person’s questions as the answer but precede this with a caveat. It’s a skill but not a good one.

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So you pulled the original statement out of a hat?

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Not at all. Just because you can't produce objective evidence of a particular truth doesn't mean that it's not potentially true.

…and equally, it does not mean that it is not false, so we may set this aside.

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Since our awareness comes from cells, and both cells and consciousness are in constant connection or communication with each other,

You have made an error here. It is a serious one. You have failed to make a clear distinction between ‘Awareness’ and ‘Consciousness’ Thus your first sentence can be read thus:

“Our consciousness comes from cells, and both cells and consciousness are in constant connection”

which is nonsensical.

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it seems like an arbitrary conceit to imagine that cells are inert objects that somehow pull subjectivity out of a hat.

It may seem like that to you, but I suggest there must be a mechanism for having consciousness (as opposed to merely reacting in accordance with physical laws) ‘bringing it all together’, if you will. Cells have no capacity to house such a mechanism. It’s simply not there!

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Order is natural. Teleonomy* and Teleology** work together, neither exists in isolation from the other.

*Teleonomy is the quality of apparent purposefulness and of goal-directedness of structures and functions in living organisms that derive from their evolutionary history, adaptation for reproductive success, or generally, due to the operation of a program. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teleonomy

*Teleology: (philosophy) a doctrine explaining phenomena by their ends or purposeswordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn

Well, being as one is the study of the other, your statement seems less than earth-shattering and is only valid if you subscribe to that particular philosophy. I’m sure it can be argued but equally sure that there are many who reject it.

I think there might be some slight and obvious merit in it but I would like to see peer reviewed evidence of the repeatability of experiments in the matter.

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For me, the essence of communication is precision. A Swiss watch doesn't need to be simple to simply keep time.

I fear a watch is useless if you need a 3 year course to tell the time from it.

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what if 60's philosophers were on to something?

Then they should communicate it clearly, otherwise their pearls are lost.

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[…]I think that change and randomness are just categories of order.

Alice in Wonderland again – randomness is usually accepted as disorder.

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[…]There's nothing that isn't an example of order

Makes you wonder why there are words for disorder, doesn’t it?[/list]

« Last Edit: June 16, 2010, 05:19:35 AM by Graybeard »

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Nobody says “There are many things that we thought were natural processes, but now know that a god did them.”

I agree, but since determinism nearly always presents itself as science, and determinism recognizes science as it's only authority, it makes sense that to talk about the OMM worldview, we talk about physical science.

The day we learned that The Sun doesn't go around the Earth, The sunset was still beautiful.

But since then, many have stopped taking that beauty seriously. "It's just a random illusion (never any mention of where it comes from, what it's made of, or how it comes into being) to confer an advantage for survival and reproduction".

This view doesn't diminish beauty because the view is not completely true. It's half true. If beauty actually became merely a mechanical convenience of evolution then the sunset would not be beautiful, it would just be a star's radioactive event horizon cycling meaninglessly through the horizontal inflection point of a planet's rotation.

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The day we learned that Evil spirits don't make us ill,The sick still suffered.

The way that's worded, it makes it sound like medicine offers little advantage over superstition.

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The day we learned that Our hearts are not where we feel, We were still in love.

Only because we can't help it, not because our understanding of the brain enlightened us as to what love is, why we feel it, or indeed why we feel anything at all.

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Our world is not a conjurer's trick. Knowing how it's done. Doesn't make the magic go away.

Of course it doesn't. Neither does knowing that consciousness partially conjures our world make it a trick.

To think that the subjective orientation is always rooted in fear of losing magic is presumptuous. Personally, I have seldom been even tempted to take ideas like evil spirits, God, Santa Claus, or any kind of sappy sentimentality seriously. For me, the point of understanding how subjectivity helps shape our cosmos is not to make it more magical, it's just to try to accurately describe what it actually is, and not only what one historically recent application of empirical pattern recognition software expects it to be.

« Last Edit: June 16, 2010, 07:16:17 AM by Immediacracy »

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"That which we call reality arises in the last analysis from the posing of yes–no questions and the registering of equipment-evoked responses; in short, that all things physical are information-theoretic in origin and that this is a participatory universe."- John Archibald Wheeler

I think I can translate that: “All matter takes on certain forms in given circumstances...Stripping molecules of their atoms alters the nature of those molecules.” Am I correct?

Not correct as far as following what I'm trying to say, no. I'm saying that matter is nothing but consistent patterns of form and circumstance.

Obviously removing atoms from molecules alters the nature of those molecules, but also removing protons from an atomic nucleus alters the nature of that atom, and removing quarks from a proton alters the nature of the proton, and quarks are pretty tenuous examples of matter - more a 'tendency to exist' than existence. Matter is only solid and real to us because our bodies are made of big chunks of matter bonded together so we can't pass though walls like gamma rays can.

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This process is constrained by laws that mankind perceives as true.

The presumed processes of the nuomenal cosmos are not constrained by our laws, our laws are attempts to map our own inherently, ontologically constrained view of the phenomenal cosmos.

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Do you consider that (i) it is possible that patterns are not the be-all and end-all of the universe?

Sure. I can't really imagine how it couldn't be, but I'm very open to someone suggesting an alternative that I'm unfamiliar with.

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(ii) How do “patterns” and “laws” differ?

I'd say that 'laws' describe patterns which supervene upon or arise from other patterns (meta patterns). It's a relativistic term, as in, it describes the relation of one pattern or group of patterns to another, and implies some degree of governance of the subordinate pattern.

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Well, that statement seems to support my theory of your thoughts.

neat

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Even disorder is a kind of order and not the other way around.

“All white is black, and not the other way around.” Doesn’t make a lot of sense, does it?

No, but "All shadow is produced by light, and not the other way around" makes perfect sense. Black and white are linguistic concepts based on subjective conditions, so not appropriate for characterizing a category which is common to both interior and exterior phenomena.

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Listen up Immediacracy,

Sorry if I'm frustrating you.

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the reason we don’t say that is that we have 2 words… one is ‘order’, the other is ‘disorder’ and they mean different things. It’s called proper use of vocabulary.

Disorder is just the word 'order' with a prefix. It is a different word - sort of, but disorder means not just any random different thing, but the specific lack of the thing that the root word refers to. If you're going to use vocabulary properly, you might as well go one step further and understand what words your using.

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Tell me, were you one of those annoying children who, on a trip to the coast, kept saying, “Are we there yet?”

Not at all, I was usually very quiet and self contained, which is why I was able to go to a lot of coasts all over the world.

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Entropy will take a little time. The Universe apologizes for any inconvenience caused by this delay.

Why a delay? What about entropy that comes from entropy takes time to happen?

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The expansion followed an order determined by the property of the matter that came into existence

Not so fast. What about these properties of the matter that came into existence? Where did they come from? And what does the explosion expand into, since it contains not just all matter and energy but also all of timespace within it. I've already talked about this a lot on other threads. If the Big Bang is the beginning of the Universe, you have to treat it like that - not as just a big explosion in an empty infinity of space and time.

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Therefore it was just as ordered as it is now. We may see a difference in the conditions between then and now but, as they obeyed orders, it is equally as 'ordered'.

That's what I'm saying too. The order 'exists' beyond the time and space which didn't exist before the big bang. Order is primary. Matter does what it's properties dictate that it must do. Matter is nothing but the spatiotemporal manifestation of those properties, those patterns, that order.

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Please don’t forget to do that; as it is, the picture is simply a mentally disturbed jumble of meaninglessness. Your plan of trying to appear intellectual by being mysterious about its meaning (if any) fails to impress me.

No I, plan to, but I'm not trying to appear intellectual and I'm not trying to impress anyone.

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Our perception (of) the world is as much defined by what we are, our perception, our intellect, our tools, our physical scale and speed.

You say “as much defined”… “as much defined” as what?

As the presumed object of our perception. "The world itself"

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No, seriously, unless you can define consciousness and show there is a positive link, you simply can’t do that.

That's how ideas happen though, for better or worse.

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So subjective bias people like subjectivity… Is it me or is that almost a definition and thus trivial?

It's not that they like subjectivity it's that they only accept ideas which support their subjective bias. It's not voluntary, it actually shapes their literal perception of their lives.

Hmmmm…. That’s what I said.

Would you say that 'fish like water' is the same thing as saying that water defines the world which in which many fish live, much of the time?

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It appears that you have a tendency to restate a person’s questions as the answer but precede this with a caveat. It’s a skill but not a good one.

That's what it appears to be to you, but that's not what it is to me. You're not wrong for feeling that way, but you're also completely missing my points and blaming me for it. Which isn't a skill.

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You have made an error here. It is a serious one. You have failed to make a clear distinction between ‘Awareness’ and ‘Consciousness’ Thus your first sentence can be read thus:

“Our consciousness comes from cells, and both cells and consciousness are in constant connection”

which is nonsensical.

It's not nonsensical to me at all. It's kind of scrambled but essentially true. How is consciousness not constantly connected to and communicating with the cells of your nervous system?

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it seems like an arbitrary conceit to imagine that cells are inert objects that somehow pull subjectivity out of a hat.

It may seem like that to you, but I suggest there must be a mechanism for having consciousness (as opposed to merely reacting in accordance with physical laws) ‘bringing it all together’, if you will.

The mechanism for our sense of consciousness as individuals is the human nervous system. We are a suite of programs that runs on a suite of programs that runs on that network.

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Cells have no capacity to house such a mechanism. It’s simply not there!

They don't house the mechanism, they are the mechanism. Just like the internet isn't housed by switches, routers, and servers, the internet is the actual functioning of those devices. If you crack open your network card, you're not going to find our thread of comments, but without that network card, you can't get to the thread at all. Our experience of the internet is just the inside of the internet - the ordered patterns it carries, not some kind of internetness juice that is secreted by microprocessors all over the world.

Cells are life. Life has an inside and an outside. We know this because that's what we experience ourselves. We don't experience ourselves only as a Sims-like avatar in a world of objects - we experience immensely powerful (to us) drives which bond us to our lives, our ideas, our richly idiosyncratic identities. 'We' are each a very fancy program running on a human protocol stack which transmits, receives, and processes universal datastreams of ordered energy, matter, organs, tissues, cells, and zoocentric streams of sensation, perception, emotion, and homocentric streams of cognition, language, images, archetypes, and intuition.

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Order is natural. Teleonomy* and Teleology** work together, neither exists in isolation from the other.

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I’m sure it can be argued but equally sure that there are many who reject it.

I'm sure there are. Just like creationism and the flat Earth rejects Darwinian and Copernican thought.

I have to say, I don't fully understand this compulsion so many people here seem to have of first announcing, at every opportunity, that I'm wrong and then saying that they're sure there must be some reason why.

How how are people so eager to harp on the need for evidence constantly and then faced with a plum opportunity to provide evidence to completely disprove my point, they say 'go read this book' or repeat their personal opinions about how I write or think.

Never 'I disagree' or 'I think it makes more sense like this' - just some variation on 'you can't prove you're right, so you lose'. Not picking on you in particular, I'm just saying that it's mainly the kind of feedback I get here, and that I don't think I've ever been that rude and vain to approach a discussion of cosmology that way.

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I think there might be some slight and obvious merit in it but I would like to see peer reviewed evidence of the repeatability of experiments in the matter.

I agree. Me too.

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I fear a watch is useless if you need a 3 year course to tell the time from it.

It might take a lifetime.

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[…]I think that change and randomness are just categories of order.

Alice in Wonderland again – randomness is usually accepted as disorder.

It's semantic. They are somewhat interchangeable but there's still no randomness or disorder without the existence of order. Randomness by itself, if there could be such a thing, could never contain or lead to anything other than randomness. The possibility for order to ever arise, under any circumstance is, in itself, a preexisting order or teleological axiom.

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Makes you wonder why there are words for disorder, doesn’t it?

Not me, no. Words like randomness, disorder, chaos, reflect the relative sparsity of a pattern which our consciousness can parse or decode. They don't prove the existence of an absolute void of all information being a viable root ontology, they are just measures of our inability to recognize any familiar patterns. We are order, we recognize order. What we recognize as having very little order or order of some kinds but not other, we call disordered etc. Truly patternless phenomena we don't recognize at all.

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"That which we call reality arises in the last analysis from the posing of yes–no questions and the registering of equipment-evoked responses; in short, that all things physical are information-theoretic in origin and that this is a participatory universe."- John Archibald Wheeler

Not correct as far as following what I'm trying to say, no. I'm saying that matter is nothing but consistent patterns of form and circumstance.

Now I did mention that you had a trick of repeating the answer with a caveat. You will recall that I wrote that a translation of one of your verbose points was:

“All matter takes on certain forms in given circumstances...”

Let’s compare that with what you said, “[Not correct as far as following what I'm trying to say, no.] I'm saying that matter is nothing but [consistent patterns of] form and circumstance.”[/quote](my brackets)

1. Why did you do that?

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The presumed processes of the nuomenal cosmos are not constrained by our laws, our laws are attempts to map our own inherently, ontologically constrained view of the phenomenal cosmos.

I’m gathering more evidence that your use of words is solely to impress and would point out that “nuomenal” is spelled “noumenal.”

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(ii) How do “patterns” and “laws” differ?

I'd say that 'laws' describe patterns which supervene upon or arise from other patterns (meta patterns). It's a relativistic term, as in, it describes the relation of one pattern or group of patterns to another, and implies some degree of governance of the subordinate pattern.

So laws are based on lesser laws and patterns are based on lesser patterns… Are patterns are determined by a law?

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"All shadow is produced by light, and not the other way around" makes perfect sense. .

Hmmm… shadows are not produced by light. They are the result of a lack of light.

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Black and white are linguistic concepts based on subjective conditions, so not appropriate for characterizing a category which is common to both interior and exterior phenomena

]…and order and disorder are not linguistic concepts?

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Listen up Immediacracy,

Sorry if I'm frustrating you.

I will admit that it like trying to nail a blancmange to the ceiling. You seem to have a doctorate in being obtuse. I am hopeful that beneath all the metaphysical garbage, there may be something worth having. However, my optimism is at an all-time low.

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Disorder is just the word 'order' with a prefix.

Do you have any proof or a shred of evidence for that wild statement?

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Entropy will take a little time. The Universe apologizes for any inconvenience caused by this delay.

Why a delay? What about entropy that comes from entropy takes time to happen?

Entropy comes from entropy… really?

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The expansion followed an order determined by the property of the matter that came into existence

Not so fast. What about these properties of the matter that came into existence? Where did they come from?[/quote]the atomic structure.

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And what does the explosion expand into, since it contains not just all matter and energy but also all of timespace within it. I've already talked about this a lot on other threads. If the Big Bang is the beginning of the Universe, you have to treat it like that - not as just a big explosion in an empty infinity of space and time.

Did I mention an explosion? I thought I said, ‘expansion’. As far as where it came from, I offer you two answers: (i) God did it (ii) I don’t know and neither do you.

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The order 'exists' beyond the time and space which didn't exist before the big bang.

Ah! At last! Someone who knows what happened before the Big Bang; before the start of time. PM me, I’ll get you the ‘phone number of CERN and the Nobel Institute.

So basically there’s this noumenal order where there is nothing, not even time, but ‘order of itself’ sits there. Doesn’t seem too likely to me. Nevertheless, tell me more…

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Order is primary. Matter does what it's properties dictate that it must do. Matter is nothing but the spatiotemporal manifestation of those properties, those patterns, that order.

You know, you’re just making this up. I must say you’re doing a fine job, the technical language is excellent. It gives every impression that you actually have something behind this, yet all you have is something built on sand.

Here’s a nice quote, “An ontological argument for the existence of God attempts the method of a priori proof, which uses intuition and reason alone.”

It fails. The ontological argument was best before 1720.

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So subjective bias people like subjectivity… Is it me or is that almost a definition and thus trivial?

Would you say that 'fish like water' is the same thing as saying that water defines the world which in which many fish live, much of the time?

Irrelevant whether or not I would say it. I repeat my argument, “The statement, “subjective bias people like subjectivity” is trivial.”

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It appears that you have a tendency to restate a person’s questions as the answer but precede this with a caveat. It’s a skill but not a good one.

That's what it appears to be to you, but that's not what it is to me.

[/quote] Refer yourself back to the first point in this post, and weep.

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You have made an error here. It is a serious one. You have failed to make a clear distinction between ‘Awareness’ and ‘Consciousness’ Thus your first sentence can be read thus:

“Our consciousness comes from cells, and both cells and consciousness are in constant connection”

which is nonsensical.

It's not nonsensical to me at all. It's kind of scrambled but essentially true. How is consciousness not constantly connected to and communicating with the cells of your nervous system?

There are many types of cell in the body; most do not transmit anything we could call “consciousness.”

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The mechanism for our sense of consciousness as individuals is the human nervous system.

I think you have answered the question immediately above – the neural network does the job – not every cell.

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Cells are life.

Fingernails…

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Life has an inside and an outside. We know this because that's what we experience ourselves.

Not really, or if there is a grain of substance in it, it is but a minor irritant. If you want to be really wacko about it, you could suggest that we can never know another person’s perceptions, and thus have only our own perceptions, which might be completely delusional.

On the other hand looking across humanity is like looking across a flock of starlings – not much to choose between them really.

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I have to say, I don't fully understand this compulsion so many people here seem to have of first announcing, at every opportunity, that I'm wrong and then saying that they're sure there must be some reason why.

It may be that you’re the only sane man in the asylum. On the other hand, wading in with technical words, spouting metaphysics and believing that sitting gazing at your navel can reveal the mysteries of, and the answer to, life, the universe and everything, may have something to do with it.

I advised you keep down the specialized words with specialized meanings, and you ignored me… I am desolated…

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How are people so eager to harp on the need for evidence constantly and then faced with a plum opportunity to provide evidence…

That’s it – you’ve solved your own problem. You make bold statements and therefore it is for you to provide evidence.

There is a convention: if you are asked for evidence, you either provide it or admit you have none. No one here is required to produce evidence for or against you, you’re the one making the claims.

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I think there might be some slight and obvious merit in it but I would like to see peer reviewed evidence of the repeatability of experiments in the matter.

I agree. Me too.

… so there is no evidence…

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Nobody says “There are many things that we thought were natural processes, but now know that a god did them.”

I'm not sure if you're just trying to validate your accusation or if you honestly are overlooking the difference. If I said "iron is nothing but a style of dancing charged space" and then you repeat back to me "all iron does a dance in given circumstances.", where do you get that you're the one being unfairly corrected?

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I’m gathering more evidence that your use of words is solely to impress and would point out that “nuomenal” is spelled “noumenal.”

Sorry, I transpose that sometimes. I don't even like that word, I just don't have a better one to mean 'what the universe is really doing independent of our observations of it'

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So laws are based on lesser laws and patterns are based on lesser patterns… Are patterns are determined by a law?

Some patterns are determined by laws, some laws are determined by patterns. It's just a semantic distinction. They are simple, casual terms (therefore potentially inviting broad misunderstanding).

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"All shadow is produced by light, and not the other way around" makes perfect sense. .

Hmmm… shadows are not produced by light. They are the result of a lack of light.

Wow. Sorry, but is this really that hard?

There is no such thing as a lack of X without X. Conversely, the lack of X does not produce X. A person can see that a tree blocks the sunlight, making shade. A shadow. If rip out their eyes, they will no longer see that shadow, or any shadows ever again. No eyes = a lack of light...and yet...NO SHADOWS.

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Black and white are linguistic concepts based on subjective conditions, so not appropriate for characterizing a category which is common to both interior and exterior phenomena

…and order and disorder are not linguistic concepts?Yes, they are, but not based only on subjective conditions. I was trying to make the distinction that Black and White are idealized essences rather than concrete conditions. Linguistic maybe wasn't a useful qualification. I was in a hurry.

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I am hopeful that beneath all the metaphysical garbage, there may be something worth having. However, my optimism is at an all-time low.

Well, my ideas obviously aren't everyone's cup of tea. You can read Chalmers stuff instead if the formal credentials make it easier to swallow.

That's what I'm trying to show you that you are really saying by avoiding the question of what the move towards entropy is moving away from in the first place. Isn't the answer that order must, in all cases, precede and define entropy, just as light precedes and defines a shadow?

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What about these properties of the matter that came into existence? Where did they come from?

the atomic structure.

Isn't atomic structure a property of matter? Where did that come from. The whole idea of an atom, it's structure and properties, how it must interact with other instances of itself, how it's properties change when it combines with those other instances...where does that come from, and, since we're talking about the beginning of time, when did it come from?

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Did I mention an explosion? I thought I said, ‘expansion’. As far as where it came from, I offer you two answers: (i) God did it (ii) I don’t know and neither do you.

Well, (i) doesn't work because where did God come from?

(ii) is just accepting mystery, which I respect, but I could think of a few others though:

(iii)It doesn't come from somewhere, somewhere comes from it.(iv)the Big Bang isn't an event in timespace, it's the locus which generates the possibility of events in timespace and is better described as 'the opposite of Now' or the hub or nucleus around which timespace expands.(v)the big bang is just one side of the big bang/big crunch cycle. It's eternal and omnipresent, a fundamental condition of existence.

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Ah! At last! Someone who knows what happened before the Big Bang; before the start of time. PM me, I’ll get you the ‘phone number of CERN and the Nobel Institute.

Nothing has to have 'happened' before the Big Bang, but the order which defines the conditions which give rise to the big bang seems like it would have to exist in some way within, beyond, or perpendicular to timespace. If you make a big bang happen, you need a universe which first allows banging.

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So basically there’s this noumenal order where there is nothing, not even time, but ‘order of itself’ sits there. Doesn’t seem too likely to me. Nevertheless, tell me more…

We can't ever know what the noumenal, naked comsos looks like - at least not while we're these animals spinning around. What we can infer is that all phenomena is informed by specific order but not all order is limited to a particular phenomena.

Examples: Who you are never changes regardless of how your body or mind may change. Your name and birthdate will always be yours, even if you take a new name or fake your birthdate.

Forms like a circle or square are common to both material substance and imagination, but there was never any point which the circle or square had to be invented.

Music or images can be transmitted through many mediums, electronic, digital, and analog yet the music itself is not limited to being transmitted by any particular medium. Whether it's on the radio or nobody has played it in a hundred years, a song is a song - it's potential to exist is not limited to physical media.

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You know, you’re just making this up. I must say you’re doing a fine job, the technical language is excellent. It gives every impression that you actually have something behind this, yet all you have is something built on sand.

Thanks, I guess. I don't know what you think it has to be behind this other than what it is. I'm not building anything, I'm just describing the sand.

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Here’s a nice quote, “An ontological argument for the existence of God attempts the method of a priori proof, which uses intuition and reason alone.”

It fails. The ontological argument was best before 1720.

Well intuition and reason don't suggest the existence of a God but they do suggest the existence of intuition and reason.

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Irrelevant whether or not I would say it. I repeat my argument, “The statement, “subjective bias people like subjectivity” is trivial.”

That's your miscaracterized version of my statement "People with a subjective bias are more likely to accept subjective-biased ideas and to reject objectively-biased evidence. " I never said “subjective bias people like subjectivity”. You are putting trivial words in my mouth and calling them trivial. Now that's trivial.

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Refer yourself back to the first point in this post, and weep.

Yeah, not weeping. Twice now in this comment I'm pretty sure that you've misconstrued what I've said, substituted your meaning for mine, and then announced that you've caught me in a deception of some kind.

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There are many types of cell in the body; most do not transmit anything we could call “consciousness.”

That's true. I would reserve the word consciousness to refer to the interiority of complex meta-cellular organizations of nerve cells within animals. The cells themselves, if they have some kind of subjectivity, would be very different. If consciousness is comparable to every symphony ever written, the subjective scope of a cell might be a single note. It's not particularly useful to speculate on the subjectivity of our own neighbors, let alone subordinate forms of life. Subjectivity isn't accessible from the outside.

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I think you have answered the question immediately above – the neural network does the job – not every cell.

Yes, but the neural network is nothing but every cell. Like a wall is every brick. Each brick contributes to what the wall is.

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Not really, or if there is a grain of substance in it, it is but a minor irritant. If you want to be really wacko about it, you could suggest that we can never know another person’s perceptions, and thus have only our own perceptions, which might be completely delusional.

We can't know another person's perceptions with objective certainty, but we share our perceptions all the time through expression, communication, gesture.

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It may be that you’re the only sane man in the asylum.

Sanity is precious and overrated at the same time.

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On the other hand, wading in with technical words, spouting metaphysics and believing that sitting gazing at your navel can reveal the mysteries of, and the answer to, life, the universe and everything, may have something to do with it.

Yeah, all that fancy thinkin and worderatin' never lead to much.

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There is a convention: if you are asked for evidence, you either provide it or admit you have none. No one here is required to produce evidence for or against you, you’re the one making the claims.

Oh I understand that. It's part of the OMM mantra. I'm just saying that all these people scoffing at me have yet to produce any evidence which flattens any of my bold claims. Not saying they have to, but I'm surprised they haven't, you know, just for fun. It's almost as if they were using this convention as a security blanket for themselves and a blunt instrument for me. I guess I'd have to have evidence of that though.

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so there is no evidence…

It's not a mechanical principle, it's a philosophical observation.

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"That which we call reality arises in the last analysis from the posing of yes–no questions and the registering of equipment-evoked responses; in short, that all things physical are information-theoretic in origin and that this is a participatory universe."- John Archibald Wheeler

I'm not sure if you're just trying to validate your accusation or if you honestly are overlooking the difference. If I said "iron is nothing but a style of dancing charged space" and then you repeat back to me "all iron does a dance in given circumstances.", where do you get that you're the one being unfairly corrected?

Well it’s you who said that at its base level, iron dances.

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Sorry, I transpose that [noumenal ] sometimes. I don't even like that word, I just don't have a better one to mean 'what the universe is really doing independent of our observations of it'

Yet there you have used a phrase that is clear to everyone! Please use more words and fewer words with meanings that are almost solely the province of the philosopher of the 60s.

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Some patterns are determined by laws, some laws are determined by patterns. It's just a semantic distinction. They are simple, casual terms (therefore potentially inviting broad misunderstanding).

I accepted the invitation, please give a definitive list of the patterns governed by laws and the laws governed by patterns so I will not accept the same invitation again.

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There is no such thing as a lack of X without X.

I would think that a lack of X implied there was no X.

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If rip out their eyes, they will no longer see that shadow, or any shadows ever again. No eyes = a lack of light...and yet...NO SHADOWS.

No, even surrounded by blind men, I still see light. They may not, but indeed it is still there. (It’s not like the tree in the forest.) Your claim is that food produces hunger which does not seem to stand up to scrutiny.

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Disorder is just the word 'order' with a prefix.

I was being humorous – it is bleeding obvious that “Disorder” is just the word 'order' with a prefix. But your subsequent explanation was so bad it wasn’t even wrong.

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[Entropy comes from entropy… really?] what I'm trying to show you [is] that you are avoiding the question of what the move towards entropy is moving away from in the first place. Isn't the answer that order must, in all cases, precede and define entropy.

No. Your point that Entropy comes from entropy is far from made. Please explain how entropy manages to get up off its arse.

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Isn't atomic structure a property of matter?

Or is matter a property of atomic structure?

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Where did that come from.

No idea. Have you?

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The whole idea of an atom, […]...where does that come from, and, since we're talking about the beginning of time, when did it come from?

I’m sure we can get to an answer if we simply say Omm enough times. Or, failing that, we can sit in philosophy class and work it out without actually making any scientific observations. I’m sure the absolute truth is in all of us.

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[Re Origin of the Universe] (v)the big bang is just one side of the big bang/big crunch cycle.

(v) seems favourite.

So, does all this garbage about “order” help us at all?

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If you make a big bang happen, you need a universe which first allows banging.

There are problems with the human mind. It can’t grasp infinity, it seems stuck in 3 dimensions and it seems to be hung up on cause and effect in the 3D world. It’ll be that way forever.

Your claim there is valid only if the universe is basically like the human’s view of their neighbourhood. It probably isn’t.

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We can't ever know what the noumenal, naked comsos looks like - at least not while we're these animals spinning around. What we can infer is

Hold it right there! May I suggest that if we can never know, then any inference is bound to be false.

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that all phenomena is informed by specific order but not all order is limited to a particular phenomena.

In view of my last statement, “no.”

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Examples: Forms like a circle or square are common to both material substance and imagination, but there was never any point which the circle or square had to be invented.

This is true for anything that exists and can be described. I feel the words, “square” and “circle” had to be coined though.

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Here’s a nice quote, “An ontological argument for the existence of God attempts the method of a priori proof, which uses intuition and reason alone.”

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Well intuition and reason don't suggest the existence of a God but they do suggest the existence of intuition and reason.

Intuition is what we have as a result of not bothering to reason for a lifetime.

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Yes, but the neural network is nothing but every cell. Like a wall is every brick. Each brick contributes to what the wall is.

After acceding to the idea that only nerve cells communicate meaning fully, you then try to escape from your admission. For Shame!

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Yeah, all that fancy thinkin and worderatin' never lead to much.

I’m not arguing with that.

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I'm just saying that all these people scoffing at me have yet to produce any evidence which flattens any of my bold claims.

That’s probably because you are incapable of expressing yourself in common English.

I’ll say it again, you are capable of dispensing with a specialised vocabulary – you did it above in defining noumenal or at least using a phrase that does not send people rushing to dictionaries and causing further problems over a precise definition.

If you expressed your ideas clearly (No, really clearly and it is not clear when you throw uncommon words and concepts about) you may have more fish biting. I’m sure most people don’t mind one or two strange words in a page, but 5 per sentence is wearing.

My wife is a philosopher, her comment was, “I’ve seen hundreds like him, it’s all pointless, he plays with words. I doubt he really knows what he intends to say.” But then she can be harsh.

Look, I’m trying to be helpful here, a Dutch Uncle if you will. The concepts you are putting forward may or may not have validity but if no one can tell, you might as well give up.

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[on the requirement for the poster to give some evidence] It's not a mechanical principle, it's a philosophical observation.

Yes, we’re back to the ontological argument.

Was it Wittgenstein who said, “Of that we do not know, we should not speak.”?

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Nobody says “There are many things that we thought were natural processes, but now know that a god did them.”